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- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!

A French police special forces unit hunting an anti-Semitic serial killer launched a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday on a house where a man claiming Al-Qaeda ties was holed up, police sources said.

The suspect is thought to be a 24-year-old man who had previously travelled to the lawless border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan which is known to house al-Qaeda safehouses, one of the officials told AFP.

Two police were slightly wounded as the operation got underway, led by officers investigating three attacks by a lone gunman in which three off-duty soldiers, three Jewish school children and a rabbi were killed, he said.

A source close to the inquiry told AFP a 24-year-old suspect had exchanged words with the RAID team and had declared himself to be a member of Al-Qaeda, the armed Islamist group founded by late Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden.

"He was in the DCRI's sights, as were others, after the first two attacks," an official said, referring to France's domestic intelligence service, adding: "Then the criminal investigation police brought in crucial evidence."

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant had arrived at the operation site, in the Croix-Daurade district of the southwestern city of Toulouse, scene of two of the shooting incidents over the previous nine days, he said.